Notes and Editorial Reviews

"If anyone has recorded a lovelier Mozart recital in recent years, I’ve yet to hear it. In her early thirties, Kožená is now consummate mistress of her art. Her liquid high mezzo, with its easy upward extension, combines warmth with the bloom and freshness of youth, while her coloratura, on display in ‘Al desio di chi t’adora’ (composed as a substitute for ‘Deh vieni’), is as brilliant and expressive as Bartoli’s ...Cherubino (whose ‘Voi che sapete’ is sung in an embellished version published in 1810) and Dorabella (a blithe, flighty ‘È amore un ladroncino’) are the only roles here in Kožená’s stage repertoire. But she ‘lives’ each of these wide-ranging characters intensely, from the remorseful Vitellia in LaRead more clemenza di Tito (sorrow etched into the texture of her voice) via the tenderness and anguish of Ilia in Idomeneo to a delightfully sly, knowing Despina. The vivid, tangy accompaniments from Rattle and the OAE go well beyond mere good style, with a classy basset-horn obbligato from Anthony Pay in the Vitellia aria. Fortepianist Jos van Immerseel is an equally sympathetic partner in an impassioned yet intimate performance of ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te’..."
- Richard Wigmore, The GRAMOPHONE

"Kožená's varied recital is even better chosen. Her 'Voi che sapete', beautifully accompanied by Rattle, is given in a version with 'embellishments' by Mozart's contemporart Domenico Corri (1746-1825) who lived and died in Hampstead. They are in character, are appropriate and, to my ears, altogether charming...The concluding item, 'Al desio di chi t'adora', was written to replace 'deh vieni, non tardar' for the 1798 revival of
Figaro in Vienna. It suits Kožená to perfection, is full of unexpected beauties and brings a patchy disc to an inspiring conclusion."
- OPERA, December 2006Read less